"How do you work the situation back to get to a healthy city, because we have struck a lot of services even harder than before," Fraser said.

A woman walks away from Flint City Hall on Friday, Nov. 30, shielding herself from the rain with a jacket.Griffin Moores | MLive.com

FLINT, MI -- It's been a year since Flint was taken over by the state, but a top supervisor of Michigan's emergency financial manager program says Flint's state-appointed manager isn't leaving anytime soon.

While the city currently has a balanced budget, emergency financial manager Ed Kurtz is still facing a "number of issues" that need to be resolved before the state feels comfortable ending his appointment, said Deputy State Treasurer Roger Fraser, who oversees local government services.

"The deficit still has to be addressed," he said, adding that water and infrastructure issues remain. "And police and fire services are still in a shambles."

City services that were already deteriorating over the past decade were hit even harder by the budget-balancing moves set in place by former emergency manager Michael Brown, he said.

Now that this year's budget has been addressed, the emergency financial manager's team needs a chance to repair the damage, Fraser said.

"(The 2013 budget) is based on really decimating a whole lot of the
services the city had," he said. "How do you work the situation back to get to a healthy city, because we have struck a lot of services even harder than before... The work needs to play out and those issues need to get in place."

Fraser said Flint residents should be proud of the work Brown and Kurtz have done so far, but there's still more to be done.

Some of Flint's elected leaders contend that the 6-mill tax increase, on top of this year's water and sewer rate increases and a new street light assessment, will push some Flint residents deeper into economic hardship.

Flint City Council President Scott Kincaid said he's concerned more residents and businesses will leave the city, decreasing Flint's revenues even further and possibly putting its population at fewer than 100,000 people -- an important benchmark for state and federal aid.

"The
emergency manager, they may be able to fix the problem in the short term," Kincaid said, "but I
think in the long term they do damage that's not going to be recognized for two,
three or four years."

Kincaid said some of the changes implemented by the emergency manager were beneficial, but believes the work left to be done could also be accomplished by the city's elected leaders in a more transparent fashion.

Fraser, however, said the emergency financial manager is better suited to the job.

"Technically, they (the elected officials) have the responsibility to do it," he said. "But what we're
looking at is twice in the last decade the city of Flint ended up in a financial
emergency based on the city council and the mayor. You can't erase that history."

Flint resident Paul Jordan, an opponent of state's emergency manager laws, has said the city's financial crisis stems from more than just errors in governing, including increasing health care costs, falling property values and reductions in state revenue sharing.

In a presentation on financially troubled Michigan cities in October, Jordan said the emergency manager system doesn't work because it doesn't address the root problems.

"It's treated as an accounting problem, and it's broader than that," he said.

Flint Mayor Dayne Walling said the state and local governments should be "working together to develop innovative solutions that involve reforming local revenues, economic development policies and educational investments."

"There also have to be changes at the state level so that municipal governments can be efficient and effective in the 21st Century," he said. "Right now many Michigan communities are struggling with layoffs and cutting services so the model is not sustainable."

Kristin Longley can be reached at 810-429-5333. You can also follow her on Twitter @KristinLongley or subscribe on Facebook.